Helen Mirren. Fred Armisen. Bill Hader. Seth Meyers. Guest stars. Sumarlioi V. Snaeland Inigmarsson (he’s gonna be big guys, trust me).
- 3. 2. 7. 3. 14. 8.
Because words cannot describe what it felt to be a member of the audience during the play, I can only convey what little sense the play made through those numbers.
However, like the play, there is a meaning behind them, no matter how absurd. In the first 10 minutes of the play, we’ve been introduced to 3 main actors who each play at least 2 roles despite the fact that there are 7 people dressed in floral outfits offering ___ (insert whatever English literary term you think describes what happened) asides while dancing to the music of 3 people who were also in floral dresses. And 14? That’s the number of claps and obnoxiously loud drum beats it took to wake up the 8 people who were sleeping in the front row.
I could just end it here, but like The Room, there’s a certain satisfaction I get with sticking through until the end. A flop with passion, nonetheless, is still a better source of entertainment than a high priced blockbuster. And I wish I could label this play as one of the two, but it just ended up being the equivalent of Battlefield Earth with Andie MacDowell’s rain scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral as reinforcement.
I don’t even want to get down to the basics as to why I now ponder what I could have done with that hour and 28 minutes. I could have watched a large portion of Nicolas Cage’s version of The Wicker Man, and that would have still been more exciting than this play. I could watch the middle of Caligula on a loop four times and still gotten more joy out of that than this play. (Well that’s another story that’s a bit too taboo to talk about). Nonetheless, those 88 minutes would have given me a longer life span than Kevin Spacey in Outbreak, and between the two, I would pick dying of some ebola-like disease over this play.
And now the actual play. “Iphigenia in Aulis,” a play by Euripides, is done no justice in this adaptation. I have no idea what “transadaptor” Anne Washburn (whose previous work has included the play “The Communist Dracula Pageant”) was thinking, but I did not enjoy sitting through five minutes of dialogue in between twenty minute long songs between the seven people dressed in floral outfits—and more about them later. In a note passed around with our tickets, Washburn wrote, “I’m calling this a transadaptation because I don’t read Ancient Greek.”
Yeah, well no kidding.
You know that scene in Julius Caesar when Cassius asks Casca what Cicero said, and Casca responds with the infamous line, “It was Greek to me” because the irony was that Cicero was speaking Greek and that Casca is this uneducated fool who doesn’t understand what mob psychology is and so the line became famous because it’s really funny considering the context but also because it means to not know something that usually a lot of people understand? *Breathes* You know what I mean?
That’s what this play was trying to do. I’m not saying it was trying to reinvent—wait, no, actually I am. The play was rewritten with the hope in mind that someone would be so taken aback with its style that it would become a world famous example of a new kind of play entertainment. It was written as a dare, I would say. Someone probably asked Washburn could she get away with taking an ancient Greek text and adding tribal music and obscure references and make it into a masterpiece. And sadly, it brought down one good actress with it.
The play, now premiering as part of the Greek Festival series at the Classic Stage Company on 13th Street, starred Rob Campbell as Achilles and Agamemnon; Amber Gray as Clytemnestra and Menelaus; and Kristen Sieh as Iphigenia, a messenger, and an old man. Now I know what you’re thinking, because it’s been three days and I still can’t get over it: when you have seven people on the ground singing about the play, and you have three actors playing every role, why don’t you take a singer and make them the messenger, who has three lines? While having actors play multiple characters was custom to ancient Greek times, a role as small as the messenger could have been played by one of the singers. Alas, logic is the last thing you’ll find at this play, and it’s unfortunate that Amber Gray, the only person who had any talent on stage, will be tainted with this terrible mark on her resume.
Imagine William H. Macy and Willem Dafoe morphed together, and that product has a problem with using his middle finger. That perfectly describes Campbell, the over actor of the play who takes it a bit too seriously. Not to mention that every single time he points, he uses his middle finger. Now that’s just unsettling to see: it’s the whole reason George overreacts in Seinfeld. Campbell, whose previous works have somehow included the play Macbeth and film Unforgiven, plays Agamemnon as someone trying to do a Sean Connery expression while suffering from an epileptic seizure. The way the stage is set up, there is one spotlight directly over his body, meaning that every time his Scottish to British to Aussie drawl would open up for a new line, he would spit buckets of saliva into the air, akin to a person training their cat with a spray bottle. With a splash zone as large as the Blue Man Group’s, stand back twenty feet if you want to see his guy in a play. Maybe his saliva won’t hit you, but his preposterous overacting will.
Remember the 2006 Superman Returns and how much Kevin Spacey overacted in that movie? But it was still fun to watch because, hell, Spacey was enjoying himself and it was entertaining. Well this guy just overacts, along with Sieh. First, tell me why Achilles has this transplant New York accent going on. First off, as a native New Yorker, if it’s something we hate more than gentrification, it’s transplants trying to pretend they’re New Yorkers. And C), Achilles was a Greek soldier in ancient Greek texts, and it’s duly noted that Campbell’s entire performance (at least as Achilles) was based off of Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading er uh cough um Troy. This, added on by the fact that Sieh was overly under acting (to her defense, when there’s a guy on stage yelling at you for hours, you’d probably get tired quickly), gave the play exactly what it needed: an obscenely rude amount of time to cover up. Thank goodness there was no intermission or else everyone would have walked out.
The only good characteristic of the play is Gray. She’s down to earth, she plays the characters as they need to be, she cries when she has to, she’s strong when it calls for her to do so. She’s the only normal one of the cast, providing just the right amount of reaction to actually make the play somewhat enjoyable—at least when she’s on stage. However, the true peeve of the show were the dancers. I’m a fan of Baz Luhrmann, I like how he combines new modern music into films that are of another era. I would be giving this play too much credit if I say that’s what the dancers were supposed to emulate. But don’t get me wrong, the music was well produced and I was more preoccupied with the well timed drum beats and cello solos than I was with the cast itself. The problem wasn’t even the music, it was that at times they were characters in the play, sometimes breaking the fourth wall, and sometimes being directly referred to by Achilles. In ancient Greece, the chorus played the role of responding to the drama onstage to better excite the audience, but never were they part of the play itself. What’s the point of offering commentary if the main character can hear you too?
If you really, really, really want to go see a play that won’t even let you have a good sleep, then go watch this play. If not, save the $20 and 88 minutes, and go next door to Whole Foods to wait in that long line and spend your ticket money on a can of organic tuna.
She recently was voted America’s favorite female television character. She’s been playing the same character for over fifteen years. To put that into context, her character has lived longer than teens entering high school this year.
Olivia Benson is why people watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. That, and the phenomenal writing, great cast, amazing directing, show-stopping plot, and more. Mariska Hargitay plays Olivia Benson. Read our interview with Hargitay and SVU producer Warren Leight about Oliva and the show.
How’d you become a director?
Mariska Hargitay: I’ve been luckily paying attention for years and I have the A-team that writes to my strength as a director and it’s been an incredible inspiration and a joy. I obviously have a pretty strong view about things, so for years you see someone going, “Oh, no those are this way.” But it’s been an incredibly fun challenge and trip and education. I really love it, I find it very challenging, and because it truly is a different set of skills and you need the different tools. And sometimes I’m up for the challenge and sometimes I’m so exhausted I can’t see straight. My confidants, my consiglieres, we all talk about when I should do it and when I shouldn’t. But I’ve enjoyed it and I was blessed with these incredible actors and the last one with Danny Pino and Armand Assante surpassed my wildest dreams. It was an incredible experience and again, it was perfect. But it was an education though because actors can be sort of myopic in what they see and how they experience things. You know, it’s “How would I feel? What would I do? Me, me, me, I, I, I.” And you have to be as an actor, but as a director, no one cares about you at all. And you have to be everyone, and see every side and you have to rally a group of people and be a true leader so there are all these great things. You know, some things I’m great at, some things, I’m like “Ok, I need to work on.” But it was a thrill. It was a thrill.
Benson is America’s favorite TV character. What is it that America is responding to?
MH: You know, it’s so encouraging and exciting to me, this character, this beautifully conceived and written character. I think it really speaks to compassion and strength, and what women are – in so many ways, it’s the best part of who we are. She is fearless, she is a lioness, she is a protector, she is compassionate and empathetic, so we feel safe with her and all of those feminine things that we are. And yet, we’re not pigeon-holed because she’s a bad ass, she’ll kick your ass, she’ll get it down, she’ll protect you. And even though she has fear because she is human, she’ll fucking do it anyway. You know what I mean? And I think that’s what it is, and the writers have written this character again because she’s noble and flawed like we are, but she keeps her eye on the goal and keeps her eye on the truth. You know, it’s funny, my friend gave me the Wonder Woman book today—my niece and nephew gave it to me. It was so meaningful because what is she? She is the defender of truth, and I think a woman from Harvard conceived this character—you know, she’s the best in all of us. And I think that’s what Olivia strives to be and recently does it too. She does it all- it’s not easy but she doesn’t quit trying. Takes the hit, gets up again.
Warren Leight: She’s evolved a lot, these past five years.
MH: Yeah, she’s evolved and keep evolving. Being a mother and saying I can’t do this and she’s this, the boss, and she has a kid—she’s boss and in charge of a kid. But I think this idea of evolving and stretching and growing and showing up and being there is really helpful- I just love that that’s what people are responding to.
WL: Well what I love in that poll is that men found her their favorite woman as well and that was significant to me, because you think they’re going to go for something dumber. There’s this fear if there’s a strong female central character in your show, that’s off putting to men, but it isn’t. They actually responded very very strongly to Olivia and that’s the surprise for network executives- that she can run the squad and no one’s put off by it or throwing around the bitch word or anything.
MH: Well one of the important things that occurred to me while I was playing this character, again, was the compassion piece. That was when I went through the forty hour training to become a counselor and what we learned there is the idea of this bad ass cop who almost serves as a rape crisis counselor. [She] married into one but also maintained her own femininity and heart while she evolves and grows up and that was so important to me because humanity is right there. And she always comes to me from a broken place. She didn’t come into this world like “I’ve got everything going for me.” No she’s the broken product of a rape victim and then said, “How can I take this hole, this deficit, this pain that I am, that keeps me related and understand people and then make it my strength?” That’s also what we’re looking for: nobility of people. If somebody takes their setback, whatever cards we’ve been given, and then overcomes it, so I think that.
People can’t wait to get out of work. They spend all week powering through long hours just for that glorious 6 p.m. Friday night to come. And sometimes, others can’t wait to go back to work.
ÉCOLE, a site that was founded in 2014, just kicked off their first location, at downtown Los Angeles’ The Standard, located at 550 S. Flower Street. ÉCOLE, which was built as a youth targeted website, hopes to help men better shop for clothes through the use of intuitive technology and user interaction.
On September 9, The Knockturnal was on the set of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, set to premiere its seventeenth season on September 23 at 9pm on NBC. The second episode of the season, “Transgender Bridge” plays a big role around Peter Scanavino’s and Raul Esparza’s characters. Read on to see what Raul Esparza has to say about LGBT topics relating to people of different ages today as opposed to years before. Read on to see what they have to say about the show and even semi-address Taylor Swift’s guest star rumor.
Raul Esparza: I wanna talk about Taylor Swift coming on the show.
Well you guys make sure that she comes on the show.
RE: Oh I told Taylor, “Oh, you have to come on the show.” And she said, “The fuck you mean?”
Peter Scanavino: The two shows I’ve been on, it was Mariska [Hargitay] with Taylor Swift and Mads Mikkelsen with Rihanna. The day we were shooting something, they were like, “Mads isn’t here right now, he’s shooting a video with Rihanna.” And we’re like “What the f—!”
So you’re circling it all but are you at all—
PS: It’s ok, I don’t need to be in a music video to make my own.
Well sorry that the show is over but I can imagine that the show is easier on your face.
PS: This one? Yes, it is much easier on my face, but that one fed my heart and soul so deeply. It’s a masterpiece and I’m crazy proud to have been part of it. There has been some critical talented writing about that show that has made me insanely proud and I think about the ways that we’re writing about television to approach a show like that kind of firmness and intellectual curiosity that isn’t there for film writing. And to see that in television is so exciting and exciting for us as actors.
And just to take that, this is a very different kind of show. Is it hard to switch gears?
PS: Yeah, it is. Not so much this show, this is actually much harder to do, that was more fun. This show, because you have to stay as human as possible, and as possible as in reality, I find that it exhausts me. It wears away at you at such a matter that you’re talking about—you have to really internalize so that you are as believable as possible and you’re relating as simply as you can to the most painful issues. So it’s this completely different kind of acting.
And your thoughts on this?
RE: Going from when I was on Hannibal to this show?
PS: Haha, that was a fun time.
Yeah, which was more exhausting?
RE: There are challenges of this show. I think being a police officer that trying to be very real, but also having that empathy in every case that you want to tell the story so being a cop in this show, you always have to take it a bit more personally than let’s say, a veteran in the forces of fifteen years. Because I think at that point, there might be a bit of this gets into a job. Not a job, but just to protect yourself and what you’re dealing with in the real world every day. So I think that might be the challenge—trying to find the balance between “this is my job, I’m a detective but also a human being.” I try not to get too emotionally taken with the case so I can carry on with my career. So I think that might be the challenge.
Coming into the show, you guys are dealing with people who have this long history. Is there a boot camp?
PS: Well my first episode, they gave me a gun and they said, “Ok, you’re storming this thing.” And I swear to God, if you look in one of the takes, in the back, you see me try to holster my weapon and I had no idea so they went, “Hey, hey, calm down.” And I’m like “What do I do!? This thing!” So yeah.
RE: Slowly but surely you learn on your own. I’m fine with props. As many props as I can possibly handle. And those insane words. Warren [Leight] would write those lines just to see if I can say them. Like, “I put “prognasis” in that sentence just to see that Neanderthal mention that.” He’s just writing these words—I can tell you in the script what he’s trying to do.
To you specifically or to the others?
RE: Oh I don’t know what he does to the others but I’ll just speak for what he does to me.
PS: Electroprobajack.
RE: Yeah, he loves to toss in electroprobajack. Rectal proba-lectro.
PS: Yeah, rectal proba-lectro- ejaculation.
RE: That’s what it was.
PS: It’s a thing.
So those words have made their mark.
RE: That one stays there.
PS: Well most of my career has been in the theater so I don’t watch myself obviously on stage. That’s been the hardest transition for me—when I first started here, I started watching a little bit of what I was doing, but now I don’t go through the SVU camp stories because I can’t connect to the past of the show or how the show was shot or even how it looks like because—you have to try to keep making it your own. You’re so aware of the history of what it represents. Just try to live up to the best that you can do.
Were either of you guys a fan? Had you watched the show before you came on? What was your awareness of it in terms of quality?
RE: Well I was a fan—I would do the whole binge thing. I’ve been on Criminal Intent, been on SVU, been on the original Law & Order, so I’ve done most of them and I knew the show. But I won’t say I remember being with Chris Maloney going like this or anything. So I don’t think I was taking anything from what I’ve seen or anything.
PS: I did one episode of Criminal Intent, and one episode of what they called the “mother ship” of Law & Order. Actually, the Criminal Intent episode was really hard to film. And it ended up being a very good episode. The Law & Order episode was some of the most fun I’ve had on these very stages. Over the course of two weeks, the episode’s not probably as good. But we had a great time doing it. You know, I’ve been doing so much theater work that there was no way to make curtain and also have the time to film an episode as a guest star so I hadn’t done it for most of the time that I’ve been in New York. But I wouldn’t be surprised that most main New York actors haven’t—
Well yet.
RE: Well a lot of them just do “LL CI” or “LL—“ Right? But you haven’t done Law & Order.
PS: It’s like my friend who I’ve known over the years and he went to a screening at Sundance of all his Law & Order episodes—
Alright who is it?
PS: I won’t tell but it was a very funny joke. Because he’s right, it’s like, “Oh, you did that too? Wait a minute!”
But you have that serialized Law & Order background—has that changed your approach to this, especially within the narrative? There’s sort of a continuity element.
RE: I find that exciting. I love that long form idea of what a character can be. It’s one of the best things television has for us—telling us a story over 22 hours instead of two. And these characters kind of become part of your bloodstream, they start to play you after a while. I put on different clothes, I start to feel a little uptight, and the development here is a lot more subtle because it’s not a show that lives and dies entirely on some psychological character study. There are these little little shifts which we talked about how we relate to each other as characters is what makes the show so lively. Our relationship to each other while we’re explaining the latest case is what makes it interesting in ways that these characters shift over time. Barba is one kind of guy who turns out to be someone else. He came in as one kind of character but he turned out to be someone different. I find that really wonderful. It’s quite subtle on this show. That’s not the point of this show.
PS: It’s interesting because I think once you’re in this business and I mean the justice business—police, law enforcement, the law—you have these kind of lives. You have your own personal lives and then you have your work life and to a lot of people, those two are one thing but like, how do you solve a murder case and then go to your kid’s birthday party? You have to have some kind of division and I think there’s some kind of set up on this show—we can have the millionaire of each episode and be a grander narrative of the character.
RE: I think there’s something else that Warren [Leight] is very in tune with and starting to talk about Hannibal, network television’s changed. And we’re looking at bigger stories being told using television as a medium. A very intelligent person knows that for a television show will stay an important, powerful series, it has got to change the way it tells stories. I think that’s a conscious decision of our arc. Very conscious.
Peter, your character in the “Transgender Bridge” episode, you’re character is trying to understand what it means to be transgendered and I think that’s a thing a lot of Americans are trying to work through. What was it like to shoot that?
PS: I think it could of gone—the wrong way, which is if Carisi was like, “What is this? What is this?” You know what I mean? But I think it was coming from a real sense of wanting to understand it because he wasn’t exposed to it. I think he grew up in Staten Island, and if there were kids who felt that way, they weren’t in anyway comfortable to do it. So this kid is from a different place and he sees him as a good kid so I was glad that I could kind of be that heavy man watching the show. And I’m not talking about the person who’s saying “A man’s a man, a woman’s a woman,” because those people, you’re not going to reach out. I’m talking about those people like “Man, I really don’t understand. I don’t have any experience with this.” You know what I mean? So that’s the person I want to speak for and I want to speak to. I think it’s one of those things that you speak about in twenty years so it’s just gonna be look—happiness is the greatest thing for an individual.
RE: I noticed that transition happening in the gay community—older gay men that I knew when I was growing up who sensed that there was something wrong with them and there was a sense that they were in the closet but it was going to be a lonely, sad life. And then this sense, “Oh wait, there can be more than that. It was accepted and it’s tolerated.” And then I look at younger gay men now and it was never an issue. “Yeah, ok, this is part of who I am.” There’s a coolness of topics about sexuality and sexual identity that people in their twenties are so much cooler than I am and people in their forties are so much cooler than my parents are in their sixties. And it’s great to be part of that conversation somehow, no matter how we are involved.
Do you find that when you run into cops and you talk to them, did they change your perspectives or did you change theirs? Because I think it’s very educational in how it works in some ways.
RE: I mean I don’t know. I’ve definitely had a guy come up to me and say “Hey, I was twenty years on the job. I like you.” Or like, I’m just walking through my neighborhood and I see a cop and he would nod and I’m not sure whether he recognized me or just saying hello. You know what I mean?
PS: I don’t want to say “It’s me,” and have him say “Who are you?” And I’ll say, “Never mind.”
RE: I have a lot of fans in the TSA sort of agency.
PS: Oh yeah?
RE: All over the country they’re like “Hey!” This is my fan following.
PS: They just want to wait with you on line, say “I met you” and talk to you all the way through.
RE: That’s the power of celebrity. The funny thing is that I think people have learned about the process of American criminal justice through watching Law & Order. So we make assumptions of how important this is, from Sam Waterston, and you find that that conversation happens a lot. And one that I always love, it’s when an attorney comes up to me and says, “You feel right, you feel like a right thing. You’re a dick. That’s exactly what you should be.” There was a lawyer who talked to me about telling someone to bring a toothbrush because they were going to be held in contempt or bringing a tooth brush themselves and I said, “Well we gotta write it in.” The more sort of extreme and contemptuous and arrogant the behavior is, please let’s use it. And that’s from people coming to talk to me because there’s something they recognize. I’ve also seen the opposite, like people saying, “Barba is the worst attorney on television.” Probably half the things he does aren’t exactly legal but we don’t know because we learned it through Law & Order.
On September 9, The Knockturnal was on the set of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, set to premiere its seventeenth season on September 23 at 9pm on NBC. With such an amazing run and cast in its background, it surely can be said that this season will be as thrilling as ever. The first episode, “Devil’s Dissections” / “Criminal Pathology,” will be a special two hour season premiere with the return of a former guest star and with the cast revisiting a past crime, but that will stay up in the air. However, we can say to expect Virginia Madsen showing up in the sixth episode playing a certain caregiver role, but that’s as far as we’ll go.
For now, read on to see what Ice-T and Kelli Giddish have to say about the show, being pregnant, and even a Straight Outta Compton shout out from Ice-T.
Ice-T: You got Ice and a pregnant woman coming.
At least we know the difference.
Ice-T: Even though I’m not pregnant my wife is.
Congrats on that. Now you have extra help in research right?
Ice-T: No we’re just riding it out.
Kelli Giddish: Nobody’s giving advice to anybody.
So how does working on a show with such longevity change you and—
Ice-T: How does it mold me as a person? It’s the most, how would I say? Consistent job I’ve had? It’s the most normal, like have a place you live, go to work, part of that. You know, for a long time, being a musician and having to travel all over the world, it’s being able to act in one place. It’s a great thing you know? I don’t know when I was really young I might have liked it, it might have been too stagnant for me, but at this time in my life, I don’t mind being able to go home every night to the same place and have a home. As far as doing the job, how has it molded me? I think it’s made me a better actor. Like being able to act every day? It can’t do anything but help so I think of being on SVU is like me going to the Harvard of acting. Just having over twenty years of almost consistently acting. What about you? Are those good answers?
KG: Well I was going to say just being an actor, it’s not like we have to live or work and move our whole lives to Dallas or Atlanta or Vancouver. We get to live in New York and do a show that doesn’t suck.
Ice-T: This show could be in bum-fuck Egypt too and you’d be forced to live there.
KG: We live in a great city.
The show was filmed in New Jersey though.
Ice-T: But still, New York, New Jersey, you can’t beat this. When you’re not working, you’re in New York. It’s great.
KG: It is great. Because I’ve flown a lot—some of the shows I’ve done were in Dallas and Atlanta respectively and while I loved doing that in my twenties, it’s nice to have one character—it’s not like a film where if you mess up, it’s their perpetuity. It’s like “Oh God, I had a bad day and that take—“We get to redeem ourselves or work on ourselves every single day coming to work. And not many people have that opportunity especially in a climate of TV now. Like if it’s not a hit right off the bat, then you’re sunk and you’re done and then it’s over next thing. This is something we can rely on being there, it’s a good thing. You know, and now we have Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire or “Chicago MD” or whatever it’s called.
Ice-T: Yeah, Chicago Med and also it comes easier because every day, I’m going to be me. I’m going to be the same character. So I can just apply to different scripts this character who Fin is and everybody knows where he stands. It’s not like every show I have to create another character. And in that sense, it’s easy. I totally believe in conserving your energy because I’ve always said “Kelli, let’s conserve your energy because in a minute, or any moment, they’re going to write a scene that’s going to make you act your fucking ass off.”
KG: Right.
Ice-T: So until then, you just have to lay back and be a cop until that moment happens. And when you’re doing a show that’s really a 23 hour movie, you can’t just be on it at all times.
Do you ever look back at your earlier episodes?
Ice-T: I was still fucking incredible then. I mean you have to remember, by the time I’ve done Law & Order, I’ve done fifty movies. So I had already been in it, but I just thought to get better and better and better and better. I think I’m more relaxed now, because what Kelli said, coming from movies, you got ninety minutes to put it out there so you’re doing some super acting. When you get to this, you just gotta learn it- you can’t overdo it.
KG: And I’ve always came from dong theater and this is just like a completely different beast and I never knew I would like it as much as I do.
Ice-T: I was being sarcastic.
KG: But now, it’s—no you weren’t. I can’t even repeat what you said. “In-fucking-credible?”
Ice-T: Mad-nificent.
KG: I just don’t know where the “fuck” went in. “Incr-fucking-edible.” Is that it?
Ice-T: I’m a rapper. Forget it.
KG: But we don’t have to say the same thing night after night like the Broadway stars do. You know, like we have to stay the same character but it’s something new every single day. And thank God because as actors we just get so bored. We’re like “Huh? What were you saying five minutes ago?” Like if we’re not moved then we’re not—
Ice-T: And the fun is getting the guest stars. Because now we’re used with acting with each other but then they throw up a new person in. It’s like who’s coming to the party this week. You always get to meet new people and that’s what makes it exciting. Indefinitely.
SVU has to figure out a way so we don’t know that that’s the killer. Is there something that we know and you don’t and then we wait until you figure it out?
Ice-T: I don’t know. There’s an SVU rule. The SVU rule is whoever is suspect in the first scene is really it. Whoever we go after first, forget it. Just throw them out the way.
So that’s the twist? That’s the twist that you have the science down?
Ice-T: Good twist though.
Have either of you thought about doing anything else with the show? Like directing?
KG: No. Writing, this is a science, an exact science.
Ice-T: No. I don’t want to—not with this show. Mariska [Hargitay] directs. And she directs and acts, and it’s an unimaginable task. And I take my hat off to her because it takes a lot of work to direct this show. We start a week ahead of each episode, you finish a week afterwards, while you’re simultaneously working—and naw. I have other projects, I have a production company and do things outside of this show. Got a talk show we’re doing, got other things we’re doing. This is separate. No, I’m cool with just acting.
But it’s definitely broken actors into becoming writers and directors.
Ice-T: Yea there’s a difference between this and a movie. There’s a difference with trying to direct this while you’re on this. I’ll stay in my lane.
And yourself? You have this project (pregnancy) to work on.
Ice-T: That’s another project.
KG: Yeah, I’ve got my own project I’m working on.
Is this project going to make appearances in other episodes?
Ice-T: It’s getting a SAG card. That’s a hint.
KG: Well I’m already working on my dog getting a SAG card. She’s been in five episodes. She’ll be in the first half of the season too.
How far are you working until?
KG: I don’t know, we’ll see. I feel great. I’m really lucky to have a good pregnancy.
Ice-T: The way they address this show, it’s very fly by night. Coco’s been in the show three times, and the way she got in the show, they were like, “Yo, we need a girl. Yea, she needs to have some big boobs. Kinda like Coco’s size. You know what? Why don’t we just ask Coco?” Boom, they just put her in the show. So they’re like, “You know, we need a dog.” And “Why don’t you just use Frannie? She’s here.”
KG: She’s here anyway.
Ice-T: And there’s no science that goes into it. They go to your door “Hey guys we’re thinking about using your dog.” And we’re like “Oh fuck it, that’s cool.”
What about your music? Have you slipped it a few times?
Ice-T: I got a lot on that a few times.
KG: Oh why haven’t you? I’m interested.
Ice-T: No, not on this show. Here’s some inside info. Word on the street is that they might rekindle New York Undercover. No not a leak, you have to be a miniature New York Undercover, that with kids. Why you laughing at it, New York Undercover is like a 25 year old file. Oh I’m sorry, 20 years old. I’m an old man. So they’d have to come in with a young group of detectives, I’ve already pissed myself to be the chief.
KG: What about sergeant? You need a blond.
Ice-T: It’s a possibility and my music would fit in that. I can be transferred from SVU to there.
You’ve done Lollapalooza?
Ice-T: Yes I had.
So what do you think of Straight Outta Compton?
KG: All of us here were like “Ice, whaddaya think?”
Ice-T: Absolutely. It was very honest, it was true; the kids played N.W.A like it was really it. He was acting like Easy, kicked out of the park, I felt like I was talking to Cube, all the stuff about Jerry, all the infighting, it was all real. Like the scene where the riot happened, I was like me and Cube were making trespasses but when he cut back, he was writing Friday and I was like, “This shit is really on.” Great movie, that’ll get some Oscar nods.
In Neil LaBute’s latest writer/director role, he debuts Dirty Weekend, a film about two – rather secretive – work colleagues who spend their layover in Albuquerque getting to know each other better and discovering their own secrets. Starring Matthew Broderick as Les and Alice Eve as Natalie, the two share an onscreen chemistry that widens as they uncover their personal lives and experience the city. The Knockturnal had the pleasure of interviewing the cast and director at the Friars Club on Wednesday night.
Neil LaBute
You stated before that you shot in 15 days. Were there any challenges you experienced?
Yes I think it makes it a challenge for actors, because there’s only so much that people can cram into their head and make real for themselves and then onscreen. And you’re asking them every day to do that you know? So I think there’s a placem where exhaustion takes over; in fact, it’s sorta helped us in a way. Like in the last scene we shot with atthew was really late at night and on our last day, and it’s really meant to be the time that he spends with this young woman and he was so tired that I think he got relaxed in a way that you might not at 10 o’clock in the morning, you know? He really felt like he was sleeping at that place and woke up tired. So that kind of thing I think you get a lucky break, but you want actors to do their best and sometimes you ask them to work beyond where normal working conditions are for something that’s a bigger budget film. You’re saying, “We have this much money, this much time, can you go above and beyond what most people as you to do?”
You worked with Alice before in Some Velvet Morning, so how was it like working with her again?
I did and she was great. It was so fun to work with her the first time and so different as a character so it was a pleasure to see her become a different character, physically see her become a different character. And we kept pushing that, “How can we make it more different than that last thing you did?” So that’s a fun thing to see how an actor can become different people. And she’s really smart—she takes your words and makes them become better than on paper, so what more can you ask for?
Since this is one of many projects you’re written and directed, did you do anything different now?
I think, like any work, you get better at it, you get more confident. If something comes up that you think you haven’t seen before, you’re a little more relaxed, you’re older. I think you hopefully grow a little bit. The more times I’ve done films or theater or television that’s been in small increments of time, the more relaxed you are about doing it that way. So I think it’s more about the repetition of doing it well enough that people respond to it that you go, “Yeah, I can do this now.” If you told me however many years ago, “Oh, you’re going to do this movie in eight days,” I’d go “No!” I mean, I’ve made one in 11 days and that was really fast, I don’t think I can do eight days. And now you just kinda go, “Yeah, I think I can.” So just more confidence.
Were you ever stuck in a layover?
Oh I have been but nothing like too bad. It’s always been weather related or that sort of thing, or having a plane just cancelled when I was in Eastern Europe, Romania.
In a gulag.
Not quite a gulag, but it’s one of those things that feels so out of your control. When people say “Fly safely,” you’re like, “I’m not really doing anything. I’m just going to sit somewhere and hope it all goes really really well with someone I’ve never met in my life.” So that’s just a strange phenomenon that most of us just pretend isn’t happening, you know, that we’re thousands and thousands of feet above the earth in something that really shouldn’t be up there. You know, it’s like “What is keeping this thing up here?” I try not to think those thoughts when I’m doing it.
Were there any special moments from set? Like that whole Butch and Sundance scene seemed improvised.
No no that was all there. I got to work with four people that I got to work with in some capacity- Matthew I got to work with in a kind of talk to and work together but everybody else that’s kind of a main character in the piece, I got to work with, so it was all very very comfortable set that way. Which was good because I was working with a crew that I didn’t know from New Mexico. But I spent a lot of time just trying to get the “Day” shot and then you’re living out of a hotel in a place you don’t know. Have you ever been?
Nope.
Well, you get what you pay for. There are some beautiful parts. And the desert is quite beautiful, it’s not like my favorite thing, you know, but it worked perfectly for the film. And we used it as Albuquerque so that was kinda great, so you didn’t have to pretend it was somewhere else. So I didn’t mind the fact that I had a unique backdrop that I had never used before. And it’s actually one of those places that gives you a great tax break so the money stretched further than it would otherwise, so you can’t really complain. I mean, I could complain, but I won’t.
Alice Eve
You first worked with Neil on Some Velvet Morning, so how was it like to work with him again?
I feel like it’s a great privilege to have worked with Neil because he is not only a brilliant writer, but he creates a safe, clean environment on set where you can create and touch the edges of yourself and the taboos of society, which is what all of his films are about. He makes it safe to do that so I feel lucky.
And what about working with Matthew?
He’s just a funny guy isn’t he? I mean you can’t complain about funny people—that’s why they have the voice. He’s great. I have a lot of time for Matthew Broderick.
You’re also working on a number of movies.
Before We Go is the Chris Evans one which is a romance which takes place in New York, which is a very cute movie that I’m very proud of. And Beyond Deceit is the movie- that one’s coming out in February- that’s with Al Pachino and Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Hopkins has been a great supporter of my career and this is our first time to get to work together so I feel very privileged to have got to work with him.
Were there any challenges in filming in only 15 days?
Just learning it. You circle the room, clapping your hands, getting in the rhythm of the lines as they kind of go into your body as in your mind as well. And that becomes a physical and mental exercise, just stamping the rhythm into your body. But you know, that’s not sort of a challenge, because as an actor you work two months and then you don’t work four months, so you kind of seize the moments that you’re working and store them up for when you’re on the sofa.
Have you ever been in a layover?
I have been in a layover and I was stuck for seven hours in Heathrow and I made a bunch of friends with a bunch of strangers and that was a great thing. It’s amazing how a layover will bond people you know in the drama of a situation and hopefully it recovers.
Matthew Broderick
How was it like working with Alice and Neil on the film?
It was great. It was short, a three week shoot, but Alice was a great, great partner. Super friendly and we learned lines together. Without that, it would have been very hard. We had to learn like 15 pages or something of just us talking to one another a day so the night before we would go over in a panic over these pages, but she’s always in a good spirit and friendly and very helpful.
You’re also working on the Warren Beatty project.
I just did some more looping—some more ADR in that movie. I don’t know when it’s coming out but they’re very close to finished.
Were there any challenges in filming in 15 days?
Yeah, a lot. You just have to work very quickly, you don’t have a lot of time to try. The hardest part, to be honest with you, is to just learn that much talking. That’s the only thing—some of the speed is fun because you don’t have to wait around, because everybody’s busy. So that’s something good from a five month shoot.
Were there any special moments from set?
Well there were lots. Did she tell you we went ballooning? Yeah it was her idea—we went up in a balloon right when we started shooting. It was some festival in New Mexico- it’s actually really beautiful. Nothing really happened—we tried to walk to one restaurant some night I remember and thought, “Eh, let’s not drive, let’s walk.” And you know how some places like Albuquerque are, unlike in New York, you walk and suddenly you’re like, “Wow, I’ve been walking for two and a half hours and I’m at the other side of a gas station.” I remember that walk, it took a long long time.
Watch the trailer below.
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